It’s not necessary to call it a day of skiing or snowboarding at Mt. Ashland Ski Area when the clock strikes 4. Beginning Thursday, Jan. 9, a “Twilight Skiing and Riding” period will give skiers and riders time to explore several lighted trails.
Mt. Ashland Ski Area reopened Ariel Chair on Thursday, Dec. 26. The chair had been closed for repairs after Ariel Chair Tower 8 was struck by a fallen tree that forced the chairlift’s closure at the start of the winter season.
KS Wild Side: As 2024 comes to a close, it’s always nice to reflect on the year, so we bring you a 2024 highlight reel featuring good news and positive updates for public lands and all that live in and enjoy them all across the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion across Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Despite surprisingly heavy snowfall, urgently plowed roads and sporadic spinouts, Saturday saw an estimated 2,000 skiers braving mountain roads to give Mt. Ashland Ski Area launch day for its long-awaited new chair lift, the first new lift in more than 30 years.
Mt. Ashland Ski Area’s first new chairlift in more than three decades will open this weekend. The Lithia Chair will open at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 14, giving skiers and snowboarders greater access to easy and intermediate slopes, according to a release issued Tuesday from the nonprofit ski area.
The snow bibs were strapped and the bindings tightened as Mt. Ashland Ski Area kicked off its 2024-25 winter season Friday morning for excited snow sports enthusiasts in the Rogue Valley. This year on the mountain, the ski area will have multiple new features including the brand-new Lithia Chair — Mt. Ashland’s first new chair lift to be installed since the 1980s — as well as other new amenities.
Break out the downhill and snowboards. It’s almost time to go skiing and riding. Abundant snowfall means the Mt. Ashland Ski Area will open early for the 2024/25 winter season on Friday, Dec. 6, with Season Passholder Appreciation Day. The area will open to all on Saturday, Dec. 7. Both days the Sonnet, Comer, and Windsor chairlifts will operate from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Rogue Composite Vultures, composed of riders ranging from Ashland to Grants Pass, participated in the Oregon Interscholastic Cycling League State Championship XC Mountain Bike Race held Oct. 20 in Prineville. Fifteen Rogue Valley racers participated in the field of 404 from 19 teams across the state.
Ashland was recently ranked a top U.S. bike town by Outside, a major national outdoors magazine, based on high ratings from nonprofits that rate bike-friendliness of U.S. cities combined with the plethora of trails available to ride.
Mt. Ashland Ski Area hopes the community will come through with half a million dollars in donations as it prepares for a series of expansion projects that target growth areas at the nonprofit ski area and improved weather resiliency.
Barbara Shor: I first met Jane Goodall in 1987 at a lecture she gave at the Sacramento Zoo, where I was working as veterinarian as part of my residency program in non-domestic animal medicine at UC Davis.
Ashland, long celebrated for its Shakespearean drama, is about to trade soliloquies for sarcasm. From Dec. 5 to 7, the city will host the inaugural Ashland Sarcasm Festival (ASF!), a comedy takeover designed to fill theaters, bars and restaurants with sharp wit, satire and laughter.
Tickets are selling fast for “Mass for the Endangered,” described as a multi-sensory film experience of music and animated artwork being presented Sunday at the ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum in Ashland.
Ashland Scout Troop 112 will honor local veterans with a free Veterans Day breakfast on Tuesday, Nov. 11, from 7 to 11:30 a.m., or until food runs out, at Elks Lodge No. 944. Scouts will take orders, serve meals and visit with veterans as part of the local troop’s tradition of showing gratitude to those who served.
A proposal to improve safety along Lithia Park’s received a tepid response from the Ashland Parks & Recreation Commission on Wednesday, Nov. 5. Although commissioners supported adding disability parking near the Japanese Garden and created a designated pedestrian walkway, many questioned whether the cost would lead to meaningful safety improvements.
Medford voters appear to have approved a 2% increase to the city’s transient lodging tax, which will help partially pay for the construction of a downtown conference center and minor-league ballpark.
(It’s free)
